Calamity Quotes

Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint.

Calamity is the test of integrity.

Calamity is virtue's opportunity.

There is no calamity greater than lavish desires.

There is no greater guilt than discontentment. And there is not greater disaster than greed.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight.

He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.

Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience. You will find it a calamity.

Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.

Every calamity is to be overcome by endurance.

Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, and thou art wedded to calamity.

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation;

therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.

A great calamity is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened.

Calamity is man's true touchstone.

Learn to see in another's calamity the ills which you should avoid.

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life;

We say, sorrow, disaster, calamity. God says, chastening and it sounds sweet to him though it is a discord to our ears. Don't faint when you are rebuked, and don't despise the chastening of the Lord. In your patience possess your souls.

There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness.

Children seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy, discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives, humbly imagining real calamity to be some prestigious drama of the grown-up world.

Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood.

He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.

Our chief usefulness to humanity rests on our combining power with high purpose.

Power undirected by high purpose spells calamity, and high purpose by itself is utterly useless if the power to put it into effect is lacking.

To die, to sleep --To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub,For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause; there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.

What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?

The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.

Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labor in your fields and serve in your houses -- that man your navy, and recruit your army -- that have enabled you to defy the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.

It's nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of nature. To become ugly means the beginning of a calamity, self-willed most of the time.

The child thinks of growing old as an almost obscene calamity, which for some mysterious reason will never happen to itself. All who have passed the age of thirty are joyless grotesques, endlessly fussing about things of no importance and staying alive without, so far as the child can see, having anything to live for. Only child life is real life.

We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.

These hands which stretch out, implore, beg, then rise to the head in a gesture of calamity.

It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.

A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

Yield not to calamity, but face her boldly.

The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.

It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions.

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.

Therefore the elect shall go forth... to see the torments of the impious, seeing which they will not be grieved, but will be satiated with joy at the sight of the unutterable calamity of the impious.

The real effect of the WTC calamity has been depressed spirits, anxiety, and uncertainty among publishers, and of course those emotions are not restricted to publishers.

Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts.

Then, until death itself comes, no calamity need be feared.

What remains constant for me, during the last 15 years, has been the conviction that the cold war was a calamity for the entire world, and that it can be justified by no consideration of theory, nor by any supposed national interest.

A Shakespearean tragedy as so far considered may be called a story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man in high estate. But it is clearly much more than this, and we have now to regard it from another side.